


The Sea's Song

by silver_fish



Series: whumptober 2020 [3]
Category: A Saga of Light and Dark - T. J. Chamberlain, Original Work
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drowning, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Nerissa has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Panic Attacks, Phobias, Self-Hatred, Whumptober 2020, set across the whole series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_fish/pseuds/silver_fish
Summary: It is full of grief and rage, that's what Poseidon is always saying. Like the Heavens, it feels the pain of Chaos, eternally, a never-ending reflection of balance lost to Time.But all grief and rage have ever done is hurt her, and the Sea is no exception.
Relationships: Adrienne Cherri Smith & Nerissa Smith, Ely Smith & Nerissa Smith, Emerson Smith & Nerissa Smith, Nerissa Smith & Poseidon Smith
Series: whumptober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929817
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	The Sea's Song

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/laphicets) / [tumblr](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com)
> 
> back on those...trauma-induced phobias. spoilers ahoy for the whole saga. and nearly all the major ones, at that. this fic follows a chronological order, from the end of osa to post-canon. this fill is for day 18 of whumptober: my focus was on "phobias" but there are also panic attacks and paranoia going on (those are canon-typical tho. the phobia is too but far less so) so i guess it kinda hit all the boxes!
> 
> there are a lot of events in between scenes and things that aren't, like, fleshed out, because they get all the detail in the canon text. like the underworld. the gist is: spirits can only communicate via memories, and in the case of nerissa and her parents, they have to be memories she was there for, things specifically involving her. so she doesn't learn anything she doesn't already know, essentially. this isn't why she goes to the underworld in the first place but it's a huge moment in her arc that sits beside the plot so yeah. the plot itself isn't important to this fic, only the part about her development relating specifically to the point of her family and grief. there's also the point about the sea in phiise, the first time she goes there before she goes to the underworld... she sees the sea and freaks out because her fear of water is a thing in the canon too, it's just been exaggerated here for whumping purposes hahaha. so i didn't write that in cause the scene already happened! the basic point there is you know, she has a panic attack and is really ashamed of it since like...everyone witnesses it. but that's the canon point that the others all realize she's afraid of water, and then when she actually enters the underworld there's a big thing there too because they know she's afraid now and this is a huge parallel to the first event referenced (which happens in osa, so i won't waste time explaining that when ppl have access to that to read it themselves haha). then there are her wings, which she gets at the end of oes. she has to die to receive immortality, which is why she's able to enter the underworld but poseidon can't come with her. the bonds to chaos she mentions are that she is an angel (a diviner), but poseidon himself is still a mortal, he just shares an empathetic bond with chaos (and one with nerissa, which is separate), which basically means he can feel what it feels. he becomes her "guide" in this sense like she is the angel, with the magic to create the world chaos needs, but poseidon is the one who knows what it is that chaos actually needs in the first place. hopefully that makes sense!
> 
> anyway tl;dr hahaha pls enjoy! :D

The first time Nerissa ever sees the Sea, her mother is already dead.

Traditionally, dead bodies are sent out on the Sea. They drift along the waves until the deceased’s soul departs from her body and swims away to the Underworld, but the empty shell they leave behind remains. It’s probably eaten by creatures of the Sea or something, or maybe, after a while, it just starts to sink and then it decays across the ocean floor, becoming one with the nature around it. In a sense, then, maybe death can breed new life. Nerissa doesn’t know, and she’s never bothered to think about it, either. What does it matter? They burned Ely’s body in a forest and they turned and ran before the smoke had even cleared away.

She knows Adrienne saw the Sea at some point. She would have seen it in Phiise, probably. It was always a rare thing if she mentioned those days, but, every now and then, she did say something. Something about how beautiful the Sea is, how calm and kind and gentle. A long time ago, before Nerissa was even ten years old, she said the Sea reminded her of Ely—he had loved it, though he hadn’t seen it so many times himself. It’s why they’re named the way they are, _Nerissa and Poseidon_ , children of the Sea…

Nerissa does not see something calm or kind or gentle at all. It’s storming the first time she stands before those furious tides. The Heavens cry for release but the Sea cannot give it, cannot reach it. It can only take.

_Take._

And it does.

They say she was—fierce. _Brave_ , maybe. That what she did was insane and stupid and impulsive, but she’s strong. Stronger, still, for her brother’s love. She can’t really remember it for herself, after the fact. Mortals are not meant to bend nature to their wills. It is a right granted to diviners, because they exist to maintain balance. Harmony.

But there is no balance in this world.

Maybe Adrienne did think the Sea is beautiful. Maybe it reminded her of her family. Maybe she saw it as _calm and kind and gentle._

It makes no difference, because she is dead and the Sea is ruthless and they are not its children, as surely as they are no longer Ely’s children, as surely as they are no longer Adrienne’s children.

She knows why Emmet wanted to hold her back. She knows, too, that it would have been the wiser decision, if she valued her own life. But if she is no one’s child, then at least she can still be this, someone’s _sister_ , and she has sworn to love and protect him, forever, and it does not matter that mortals are not meant to bend nature to their wills because she would do it again and again if it was the only way to keep him safe.

It is not right, though. The Sea haunts her dreams. She sees him there, chest still, hands wrapped around his own throat.

She sees him, beneath the force of the high tide, unable to breathe.

He cannot swim. Neither can she. They never had a reason to learn.

Somewhere along the way, she starts drowning too.

-

It is easy to ignore, when they are so far away from the Sea. But it sets in in other places too. She has never been so aware of the danger of her magic, not like this. She has killed, of course, but it has never occurred to her that _water_ could kill, that it could be anything but her father’s practiced hands and whispered words. His water was different, though, she knows. It always was.

He was not a killer.

She finds herself using it less and less for those simple tasks. Isobel asks if she can fill a bowl to boil over the fire, and then she sends Avery to fetch something from a creek instead. She does not ask again, and nobody brings it up. They won’t talk to her about what happened, because they know the truth as well as she does and they are afraid she will speak it, but they do not want to hear that it is their fault.

Even the streams and rivers they pass by seem somehow _too much_. She stays back, away, until someone forces her closer. It’s usually Ada or Poseidon, saying something like, “You should at least wash your face,” which is absurd, laughable, really. They’re stuck out here, day in and day out, and they dare not take the risk of staying in a town longer than it takes to get food for the next week. Why should she care about whether or not she is _clean_? She has not been clean since her mother died. She can’t see it anymore, but she can feel the blood on her hands, beneath her fingernails. It keeps her up at night, skin searing, itching, aching for some sort of _release_ she cannot give it.

It's not like the others are all that clean, either. Ada complains every day about her hair—“Is it just me or is it way drier here than the Meadow?” to which Nerissa says, annoyed, “Of course it’s drier here. We’re as far away from the coast as you can get.”—and she sees the way Emmet speaks with his mother, sometimes, quietly in a language she cannot understand. She knows they are probably not actually talking about her. Most likely, they are annoyed with their conditions, just like everyone else, but they don’t want her to know it.

Why should she care, though? She never asked for anybody’s _help_.

It feels like so long ago, now, that Adrienne told them about Amery. Poseidon had said— _she chose that._

Isobel and Emmet and Avery and Ada chose this.

She’ll never know what Amery was thinking. Never know just how close she was to Adrienne to be willing to risk her life for _her_ happiness. Did she ever resent Adrienne, the way Nerissa’s companions resent her?

Dwelling on it does no good.

They are as far away from the coast as they can possibly get, and she is still afraid.

She deserves their resentment just as surely as she deserves the crimson stain on her conscience.

-

Emerson’s house is the first place they’re able to wash properly in a month. It’s sort of ridiculous, but the water in the shower only seems to serve to make her filthier, a horrible chill crawling over her, permeating her skin… She turns it up as hot as it will go just to feel something other than the soft fingers of the Sea at her back.

She doesn’t say anything about it, even when Poseidon asks her if something is wrong. Of _course_ something is wrong, everything is wrong, and he must know it too.

But what she says is, “You need to worry about yourself too. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No,” he says. “You’re avoiding the question.”

She shakes her head. “I’m fine. You need to eat. Come on.”

He doesn’t argue with her any further, but his gaze is calculating when she turns and leads him to the kitchen. There is more he wants to say, she knows, but he doesn’t know how to articulate it, when the only feelings he has now are the ones Chaos has forced upon him.

It isn’t a good thing, but she can’t help being relieved, sometimes.

Emerson, though…

Oh, she’s a nice woman. She’s soft-spoken, gentle, more than hospitable. Poseidon adores her, follows her around with shining eyes, but Nerissa cannot stand to be around her. Cannot stand to be subject to that _look_ , like Nerissa is someone deserving of her pity.

Maybe it’s just that she thinks Emerson ought to hate her too. Thinks that her father’s death sits on her sleeve, and wishes Emerson would just look down and _see_. This is who Nerissa is, this is what they died for, they are nobody’s children anymore…

And the first time Nerissa sees her do magic, she freaks out.

It’s after dinner. She’ll make tea, she says, and the sink is right there, isn’t it? But Nerissa has done the same thing before, filled a kettle with _her_ water, because the impurities will boil out of it. Why bother with the extra step when all the water in the world is right at your fingertips?

She stands up, heart racing, roaring in her ears. She’s moving before she can even comprehend that she is.

“What are you doing, Issa?”

She can’t speak, though. Emerson lets out a small hiss of pain and the kettle falls to the floor. It is frozen over. Cold enough to leave her frostbitten.

“What was that for?” He sounds angry now, the way he so often does these days. He must resent her too, but that doesn’t matter, she will protect him regardless…

He does not need protection from a kettle full of water.

“I— Sorry,” she says, lamely. “I didn’t mean to.”

It’s not frozen anymore. All the water has spilled on the floor. It reflects the kitchen light back to her, but that is not enough to block out Emerson’s expression.

“It’s all right.” She leans down to pick it up, then looks to Nerissa with a frown. “Maybe you would rather do it?”

Nerissa shakes her head. She sits down, throat burning. Everyone is watching her, but only for a moment. There’s nothing to say or do, because this is just how she is to them. A person worth resenting, she has to concede. She understands, because she resents that person too.

-

Maybe wings are supposed to make her stronger. Maybe they’re supposed to prove that she has suffered to carry the weight of the world, a benevolent god through and through. Maybe, just maybe, they’re supposed to be a symbol of _bravery_.

But she is not strong. She is not benevolent. Beneath the weight of the world, she sobbed and she sobbed and she wished she could just _die_ already, because the truth is—

She, Nerissa, is a coward.

And that has never been more apparent than right now, trying to understand what Ada is telling her. “It’s therapeutic,” she says. “It can help with tension.”

She doesn’t point out that she hasn’t had a _bath_ since she was a small child. She never liked them much, couldn’t understand the appeal of sitting in the same place for so long without anybody to talk to. And she certainly didn’t want to bring her _books_ near a filled bathtub, thank you very much.

“It’s also easier for me,” Ada adds. “Until you can do it yourself, it’s, you know, not bad to ask for help with these sorts of things.”

Nerissa scowls. “And you think I’ll try to drown myself if you’re not around, is that it?”

Ada pauses. “Would you?”

She doesn’t really know anymore.

Her silence is apparently enough of an answer, because Ada sighs. “I know it sucks, but you just have to let us take care of your for a while. You can hardly even stand on your own. Definitely not long enough to take a shower. But you’ll feel better if you’re clean, so…”

“Fine,” she says shortly. “I don’t care. It’s not like I have a choice, do I?”

“You have a choice.”

She turns away, irritated. “I’ll take your stupid bath. I don’t care.”

For a second, she thinks Ada might turn the argument around, but she doesn’t. Her footsteps retreat and, for a long moment, Nerissa is alone. Perhaps the first time she has been alone since she woke up the day before yesterday, other than when she’s sleeping. Even then, though, she’s pretty sure others come in and out of her room, to check on her.

It’s pathetic, really.

When Ada returns to fetch her, she doesn’t put up a fight. Doesn’t even really look at her. The less control she has, the better. She no longer wants it. Poseidon thinks she doesn’t deserve it anyway. Maybe it’s true. Nobody here trusts her anymore, if they ever even did. But him, her brother, the most important person in the world…

He does not trust her either.

And it feels an awful lot like _suffocating_.

Ada helps her undress, which she thinks should bother her, but it doesn’t really matter to her anymore, nothing really _matters_ , less control brings her apathy, and apathy is better than the pain.

But apathy cannot withhold the Sea.

She doesn’t know what happens when, exactly. What she does know is that she only makes it halfway into the water before she freezes. It is hot, so unlike the cool caress of the Sea, but—

But it is not unlike it all, it is dangerous, ruthless, and all it does is _take_ from her.

She stumbles, falls against Ada, who lets out a sharp gasp but somehow just barely manages to catch her. Or something like that, anyway. And then there is a towel and she can’t breathe and she is crying and the water is everywhere—why is the water _everywhere_?

It falls. Every drop of water Ada filled that tub with, drenching the both of them, drowning the floor—

Drowning, yes, that’s why she can’t breathe, water exists to suffocate, to harm, to _kill_ —

There’s a voice at the door: “Are you okay?”

Nerissa can’t see her, but she supposes Ada opens the door, because then Emerson is closer, and all she says is, “Oh.”

In far more time than it took to flood the bathroom, the water is pulled away, back to where it was. It doesn’t come all the way out of the towel, or her clothes, just there on the floor, but it is still significantly drier—warmer—than it was just seconds ago. It doesn’t really matter, though; she can’t stop shaking.

“I don’t know what happened,” Ada whispers. “One moment, everything was—and then the next…”

There are soft, gentle hands brushing against her throat, where her own have come up, gripping hard, trying to find some way to _breathe_. She can’t fight back when they’re pulled away. They are trembling. They are so cold.

“It won’t hurt you,” Emerson says steadily. “It can’t hurt you, Nerissa.”

She gasps for air, pointlessly. Her tears don’t stop coming. It hurts so badly, _suffocating_ —

“It’s okay, Ada. It’s just a panic attack.”

Nerissa almost laughs, but the sound only comes up as a sob, and it _hurts_.

“Deep breaths, Nerissa. One…two…three…four… Just like that, that’s good, Nerissa. In and out, nice and slow.”

“But—the water,” Ada says. “I don’t—I don’t understand what— It was there and then—”

A beat passes after she cuts herself off. Maybe Emerson is going to say something, but Nerissa gets through first, voice high and heavy and painful:

“It’s cold.”

“The water?”

She nods, even as she clarifies, “The Sea.”

“The— What?”

“I imagine you’d like to get dressed, huh?”

She hasn’t thought about it at all. Not really.

“I’ll go get her some clean clothes,” Ada says quickly, and then the door is slamming shut and—

“It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?”

Nerissa blinks hard, until her aunt comes into focus. Her hands haven’t actually moved away from Nerissa’s this entire time. They’re a bit similar, she notices, but Nerissa’s fingers are longer, slimmer, only just so…

“You remind me so much of your mother,” Emerson says quietly. “I remember when we met, and I thought—I’ve never met someone whose emotions were so loud before. But when she was _happy_ …”

Nerissa’s eyes fill with tears again. “My—my mother’s dead.”

“Yes. She is.”

“It’s all my fault.”

Emerson’s smile is so sad. “She said that particular sentence a lot too, the way your dad told it.”

Nerissa inhales sharply. Closes her eyes.

Emerson doesn’t get a chance to say anything else, because then Ada is back, and the two of them are lifting Nerissa to her feet, helping her dress. They lead her out of the room, the towel and her other clothes forgotten about, towards the kitchen. When Emerson gets up and fetches the kettle, she fills it from the sink.

By the time Ada and Emerson are both sitting at the table with her, she sort of feels like her voice has come back. Maybe. For now.

“You did that to the water,” Ada finally says. “Right?”

Nerissa blinks. “Did what?”

Ada’s eyebrows furrow. “Made it come up and out everywhere like that?”

“I didn’t do that.”

“What?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Maybe your magic just needs an outlet,” Emerson suggests. “You know, it’s all very emotional. The stronger your magic is…”

Nerissa winces. “I…I didn’t _ask_ for this.”

“We know,” Ada says. “But—Emerson’s right. You were feeling really strongly then. So…what happened?”

Nerissa bites her lip, casts her gaze downward. The kettle whistles. Emerson stands, walks away, and the silence is full of the noises of the kitchen, but Nerissa does not look up even when Emerson returns with three cups of steaming tea.

“Thank you,” Ada tells her.

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor. “You’re welcome.”

It’s like they’re somewhere else entirely.

“Nerissa?”

She shakes her head, jaw clenching tightly.

“I felt a lot of fear,” Emerson suddenly says. “You were scared. Weren’t you?”

“N-no.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid.”

Her head shoots up. Her eyes are stinging again, but she pays it no mind as she climbs to her feet, trembling from her head down to her toes. “I’m not afraid!”

“Yes, you are.”

They spill over, searing down her cheeks. “I’m _not_ , I’m not, why would I—” She gasps, a hand flying up to her chest. Her pulse is racing. There is a horrible pain, just here…

“Breathe, Nerissa. Just breathe.”

It hurts so much. The way she imagines drowning must.

“Being afraid isn’t a sign of weakness,” Emerson continues. “It’s normal. We all have things we’re afraid of.”

“Spiders,” Ada offers. “And bugs in general. They’re so _gross_.”

She falls back in her seat. Her breaths come hard and fast.

“We have a choice, though,” says Emerson. “We can let our fears control us, or we can control them. It takes work. And patience. But it’s not impossible.”

“I—I already control it, don’t I?”

“Was that really in your control?”

Mortals are not meant to bend nature to their wills.

“I can’t remember,” she whispers. “I’m trying to forget.”

“Forgetting will only make it hurt more when you have to remember.”

But it already hurts so much. _Too_ much.

“What, um…” Ada stops. Nerissa’s hears her swallow. And then: “If you don’t mind sharing…what was it?”

It takes and it takes and it takes. It is unrelenting. Ruthless. It seeks only to kill.

She’s not really any different, is she?

“The water.” Her voice is cracked, shaky, broken up. “It was the water.”

“Your magic…”

“I hate it. It’s—it’s disgusting. I don’t want it.”

“But you have it,” Emerson cuts in. “And it’s a part of who you are.”

“A part that kills people.”

“A part that protects her brother,” Ada corrects. “Even when it means doing hard things, like taking another person’s life. That’s not disgusting. It’s admirable.”

“It’s— _my_ fault— My mom—”

“Katina killed your mom,” Ada says sharply. “Not you.”

Nerissa shakes her head. “That’s not—I know—I mean she _told_ us—my dad—my magic, to protect Poseidon—”

When she cuts herself off, the room is spinning slightly. She grabs the table with her right hand and grips it so tightly her knuckles begin to ache.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Nerissa.”

“It’s my fault. All my fault.”

“But it’s—”

“Everything.” She bows her head, screws her eyes shut. “I killed him, I killed all those people, I l-let Mom die and—and then I a-almost let Poseidon die too, and I killed _myself_ , _I killed myself_ , Poseidon hates me so much.” She stops, gasping for air she cannot get. “It hurts, it _hurts_ , even if I—deserve it—even then— _it hurts so much_.”

“Yes,” Emerson murmurs. “It hurts so badly, doesn’t it? You can’t ignore it anymore, and now…”

“I can’t breathe,” she gasps. “I can’t breathe.”

“It’s okay, you’re okay… Let’s breathe together again, all right?”

She breathes, and she breathes, and she breathes.

There comes from the hall the sound of a door opening and closing. Immediately, Ada is on her feet, but just as she reaches the entrance of the kitchen, she glances back and says, “You don’t need to go anywhere.”

And then she is gone. Nerissa doesn’t know who else is out in the hall with her. She didn’t even know anybody was going out in the first place.

“Tea helps.” Merely a suggestion. “If nothing else, it will make your throat feel better.”

“My throat doesn’t hurt,” Nerissa mutters, but she drinks the tea anyway. All of it.

Because it is easier, she supposes, than facing what is right in front of her.

 _Coward_.

She knows it.

When the Heavens fell on top of her, she cried and she sobbed and she wished, more than anything, that she could see her parents again.

It comes and it goes, the grief. It swallows her whole and then spits her back out. There is only one person left in this world who understands, but what does it matter, if he hates her too?

That’s the strange thing about drowning, she supposes. Even if someone else is pulled under the water with you, you both still die alone. There is nothing to say, no way to say it. After some time, the water grows dark, thick with the pain piling up in her lungs. After some time, she won’t be able to see him anymore, and she will never know whether or not he resurfaced.

Maybe she does like the feeling of it. If she didn’t, she would keep fighting until she knew he was safe. She would not give in, would not bow down. She would part the Sea for him, and she would not let it fall on top of her.

So what happened?

“I know you don’t…” Emerson stops, coughs. Says, “I know you aren’t exactly fond of me, Nerissa.”

Nerissa holds the empty teacup just in front of her chest, staring down into it. It is white, glassy, but that does not make it any fuller.

“But I would like to help,” Emerson continues after a moment. “In any way I can.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Don’t need it, or don’t know how to ask for it?”

She sets the cup back on the table. It hits with a heavy force, a sharp slam, but it doesn’t break. It doesn’t even rattle.

“There’s no shame in asking, but…I guess the point is—nobody _is_ asking anymore. I haven’t known you long, but even I can see that everyone—all your friends, and your brother too…they’re worried about you. You were unconscious for weeks, and now that you’re awake, well…”

She never really used to cry much. Even as a child, she can’t remember many specific occasions, especially after Poseidon was born. Whenever she _did_ cry, though… Adrienne said the calm and kind and gentle Sea reminded her of Ely. Of course it did, because he _was_ calm and kind and gentle, as far as Nerissa can remember him. He taught her how to use magic. Taught her how to use _water_ to do everything except _heal_ and _hurt_ , because she could not heal and he could not hurt, and so they found their common ground somewhere in between.

Adrienne wasn’t like that, though. If Ely was the Sea in tranquility, then Adrienne was the Sea in a storm. Oh, no, Adrienne did not hurt them, not like the Sea has… She _tried_ to protect them, and she failed—just as Nerissa has failed, because it is miserable work, isn’t it, keeping them _safe_ …

No, they are not children of the Sea. They are not Ely’s children. They are not Adrienne’s children.

But they are still children.

And children—they’re emotional. They’re easily moved to tears. They scream in their rage and they lash out and sometimes, even, they hurt themselves, but when it is all over, they have someone to go to who will brush away their tears, who will bandage their wounds, kiss them better, and say, “It will be okay,” because it will be, of course it will be, as long as their parent is there to make it okay. Isn’t that right?

She lifts a hand and wipes furiously at her eyes, though it is a rather pointless endeavour. They won’t stop, and the harder she tries to make them, the worse it stings. She does not _want_ to wipe her own tears away. She is a child, and she misses her mother, and she misses her father, and she cannot do this alone, not anymore, not ever again.

Emerson doesn’t say anything to her. She doesn’t offer to wipe her tears away, either, even though there is a part of Nerissa that cannot help thinking—here, Emerson, her father’s sister…she is the last link she has to her parents. Poseidon hates her. Herself, she is fundamentally— _broken_ , so far removed, now, from the things her parents were in life, all the things they surely hoped she would be in hers. Maybe Avery knew Adrienne, but she did not know _Adrienne_ , the Adrienne who existed because of Ely, the one Nerissa grew up looking up to, admiring… She was a strong woman, who lived what Nerissa can only assume now was a difficult life—made all the more difficult for her children, and yet she never stopped loving them, would not have even considered such a thing in life, but in _death_ …

Adrienne, whoever she was before she met Ely—Nerissa thinks that person died a long time ago. And then there was the Adrienne who lived after him, another person entirely too. When he died, she must have lost a part of herself, something intrinsic, strung into her soul… A year ago, this would have seemed absurd to Nerissa. Now, though, today—

She understands, because she has died and come back to life far more times than one.

At some point, Emerson rises. She brings her more tea. Nerissa doesn’t drink it, because she can’t even see the cup through her bleary eyes, but Emerson doesn’t seem to expect her to. Maybe she’s just waiting for Nerissa to stop crying so she can get her say in, like she’s been trying to do this entire time.

She can’t make it stop, though. If her family makes up pieces of her, then she supposes it is this: her magic, permanently tainted by the death of her father; her heart, torn from her chest, an empty cavity in the shape of her mother; and her lungs, full of Sea water, impossible to breathe through under the weight of Poseidon’s scorn, his distrust, his misplaced faith.

And then—what is she? Who is she, other than her family? There is her head, her heart, her magic, but they say she is impulsive, and she aches so fiercely, and she has killed, now, too many times to count, but whose death is it that has left her so very broken?

Eventually, she does drink it. She wipes her last tears—but they are not her last, of course they aren’t—and she stares ahead, into the kitchen. Her father grew up here. At some point, her mother was here too. Did they stand there? Did they sit at this table together, with his family? They would not have known what was coming, and so…

Were they happy?

“Nerissa?”

Her head snaps to the side, eyes landing on Emerson. She is just sitting there, and she is—calm and kind and gentle. She has been this entire time.

It should not hurt so badly as it does.

“What’s on your mind?”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. Wraps her hands around the empty cup and drops her gaze.

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Why do you think that is?”

She’s a difficult person to lie to, but Nerissa isn’t sure why she thinks she ought to be lying in the first place. Still, there is a long pause before she can make herself speak the truth: “There’s just too much.”

“Maybe we can pull it apart a bit, then,” she suggests. “Small things at a time. What are you thinking right now?”

She turns to face forward again. She sees everything in front of her, and yet she sees nothing at all. Her exhaustion runs deeper than the weight of the Heavens resting on her shoulders.

“My mother came here,” she says quietly. “Didn’t she?”

“Yes. Just once.”

“And what…what happened?”

“Nothing, really. It was just a stop on a long journey for them, but…I think I remember your dad saying that it had been her idea to come here. I think we all just assumed she wanted to see the shrine.”

“She didn’t care about that sort of thing.”

“No?”

“No. She was good at pretending, though.”

Emerson is silent, so Nerissa clarifies, “She always encouraged my studies, but I guess I sort of always knew it wasn’t something she actually cared much about. We all knew it was impossible, but she never told me so the first time I told her I wanted to come here someday.”

“But you’re here now.”

Her shoulders hunch up, painfully. “There’s nothing here.”

“And you expected something more, right?”

“I just want my parents back,” she whispers. “I just want to go home.”

“I know.” Does she? “But instead, you’re here.”

She doesn’t say something like one of the others might, something like “Your brother needs you,” and Nerissa doesn’t know if it would hurt more or less if she did.

Poseidon doesn’t _really_ need her. She understood that when she walked into the forest, just weeks ago. It all made so much sense then. She would probably die, sure. But Ada would still be around to teach him to heal. Emerson would still be able to connect him to their parents, and help him control his Empathy. Avery and Isobel and Emmet…maybe with Nerissa around, they would not care if Poseidon lived or died, but if Poseidon was the only one left, then what choice would they have? As long as one of them lives, a symbol for their cause…

But she needs him, more than anything. There is nothing left in this world that matters more to her. She would die a thousand more times if it was the only way to keep him alive, but—

He hates her. He does not trust her.

And doesn’t she sort of deserve that?

“Have you always wanted to come here, Nerissa?”

She nods. “I thought…I thought if I could—connect, somehow…”

“You are a lot like your father, you know. In many ways.”

“N-no. I’m not.”

“You are,” Emerson says gently. “And your mother too. Even if it’s hard to believe now, that doesn’t make it any less true.”

“They were good people—”

“And you’re not?”

She turns away, eyes as far from Emerson’s as she can get them.

“It’s not really that simple anyway,” Emerson reminds her. “And…I don’t think your mother ever really thought she was a good person, either, but those sorts of things… It’s more complex than ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ What I do know is that…even at her worst, your dad loved her, and I know he would love you too.”

“You don’t.”

“I do. Whenever they talked about having children… I knew him our whole lives. I’d never seen him so happy as I did when they were together, just after they got married… They wanted a family more than anything.”

Nerissa closes her eyes. “We’re not a family anymore. They’re dead.”

“They’re still your parents, whether here or in the Underworld. And I know…I never got to meet you before, but we all always knew, you know…Ely, he’ll be a great dad someday. Even in death, I’m sure…”

Adrienne said things like this sometimes too. _He loved us in life and he loves us in death_ , but it does not matter if he does, does it, when he is _there_ and Nerissa is _here_ , and he cannot touch her, cannot tell her for himself… What is there to be proud of, anyway? What is there to love? She has done everything wrong. She tried to leave Poseidon here, and, these past few days, she has found herself wishing she had been successful.

She was so close to them. She _heard_ her mother’s voice.

“None of us ever really knew what your mom went through,” Emerson suddenly says. “Maybe it was wrong of us to, but we guessed, sometimes. She carried a lot of pain with her, but it’s one thing to feel emotions and another thing entirely to understand why they exist. She…said things sometimes, though. Things that made us think she was frightened by her past, more than anything.”

“She was,” Nerissa mutters. “She hated her past. She never wanted to talk about—anything. Even Dad, after…”

“It’s hard to talk about difficult times,” Emerson concedes. “And you know that too, don’t you, Nerissa?”

“Why…why talk about it?” She clenches her hands into fists in her lap. It is not enough to keep the tremble out of her tone. “I killed him, and I let her die, and Poseidon almost _drowned_ , and I—I—”

“You died.”

Pain shoots through her temples. “I died.”

“So how does it feel?”

“What, to die?”

“To live, knowing that you did.”

“Oh.” With a deep breath, she forces herself to relax. Opens her eyes. She does not face Emerson again even as she says, “It feels like drowning.”

“You’re afraid of water.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why drowning?”

Her hands come up, brush against her throat. “I’ve never swam before, you know. But I think about—every single day, I remember watching, waiting for Poseidon to resurface, and then he didn’t. I moved—moved the entire Sea to get to him, but what if—what if I _hadn’t_ , and he had drowned, or—or if I had jumped in after him and _I_ had drowned too? But he doesn’t even…he doesn’t even think about it, because he’s just—that’s not who he is. He told me that he wouldn’t have… He says he wouldn’t have even tried, because he didn’t want to die, but I still…”

“But you didn’t drown in the forest,” Emerson says.

“But I couldn’t breathe.” Her hands tighten, until her voice is high, strangled. “I couldn’t breathe, and I died, and I couldn’t breathe.”

Light fingers pull her hands away, drop them back down to her lap.

“And yet, you’re breathing now.”

Is she? If each breath hurts, if her lungs have been collapsed and carved out of her…is she really breathing?

Is she even _living_?

“But a phobia is a phobia,” Emerson muses. “Not much that can be done about it, I’m afraid, unless you think you’re ready to try working through it.”

Finally, their eyes meet again.

“What do you mean?”

“Gradual exposure might help,” she explains. “But you’re already recovering from something pretty big, emotionally _and_ physically. Trying to get you to a point where you can step into a bath without panicking, well… That might just add extra stress.”

“Does it even matter?”

“Do you think it doesn’t?”

“It… What’s the point, if it won’t matter whether I’m over it or not? I still have to use magic. I still might have to—to go back to the Sea. Whether I’m afraid or not, it doesn’t really—change. Does it?”

“Well, the difference would be, I suppose, that being afraid is going to make it harder. It might even make you more afraid, once it’s all over.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s your choice, of course. There are other things you need to be focussing on right now too, to get better.”

Is she _trying_ to get better? She doesn’t think it really makes a difference. If it does, then it’s one she doesn’t care about. There’s no reason to.

When she says nothing, Emerson adds, “And one of those things is letting your body recover. For that, you need to eat and sleep, so… Do you want to help with dinner?”

Nerissa laughs. It hurts, like saltwater down her throat.

“I doubt I would be much help right now.”

Emerson offers her a small smile. “Maybe not, but I’m really just saying…if you want to stay here with me while I cook, you can. But you don’t have to, either. I’m sure after this afternoon, you could probably use some rest.”

All she’s really done since she woke up is _rest_ , though.

“I… Yeah, okay. Er…thank you. For…”

Emerson stands up, turns away. “There’s nothing to thank me for, Nerissa. These are the sorts of things family is here for.”

 _Family_.

She is nobody’s child. Now, even, she is nobody’s sister.

But this, Emerson—she is saying, _You can still be somebody’s niece_.

And that isn’t nothing. Is it?

“I don’t hate you,” Nerissa says, throat tight.

Emerson glances over at her. Her eyes sparkle with what Nerissa thinks is amusement. “I know you don’t. But it would be okay if you did, too. Your feelings are your own, and they’re meant to be felt.”

Neither of them says anything more, but Nerissa stays there the entire time, head swimming. There is simply _too much_. She can still feel the Heavens on her shoulders. Remembers their grief, all their pain, imparted to her, Chaos’s new messenger… She exists to create balance. Harmony.

But how can she do that, when there is no balance left within _her_ at all?

Adrienne said sometimes— _your father’s eyes, you have your father’s eyes_. She does, doesn’t she? Her mother and her brother, irises as ferocious as the Sea, full of all its turmoil, and then there is—Nerissa, and Adrienne said, “The first time I saw him, I thought of how the Heavens look when it rains. Such a beautiful grey, I always thought.”

It was raining on the beach. It rained in the forest. _Rain_ , a constant companion to grief, an agent of melancholy… Of course, it’s just a comparison to the colour. It doesn’t _mean_ anything. Just like her magic, her water… It is just a coincidence, really. She used to love rain. As a child, she saw pictures of the Sea, and she wished she could see it in person.

But back then, her mother’s eyes did not haunt her dreams.

Back then, she was proud to be her father’s daughter, because she thought she deserved his love. _Deserving_. Such a funny word, really. That doesn’t mean anything, either. Who can say who deserves what, when Chaos granted wings to a coward?

Maybe it feels better to be afraid. There is a safety in it, this fear… She is not afraid of her magic, only of its form. She is not afraid of dying, only of drowning. She is not afraid of things like _grief_ or _rage_ , only of the ruthless Sea and everything it has already tried to take from her.

She does not want to stop being afraid, if it means admitting what she is afraid of.

-

The Sea is an entity. Together, with the Heavens and the Underworld, Time and Chaos, it makes up the entire world. The angels were once worshipped as gods, but, in truth, they were still subservient to the world itself, Komos. It was named that because of Chaos, is the theory. The first time the world was named, in some ancient civilization far beyond, even, what they have any real record of, somebody felt the magic in Chaos, and wrongly believed it to be that of the planet itself.

Or something like that, anyway. Science has come a long way since then. Nobody knows what _Komos_ means, but it has, oddly enough, stuck all across various cultures.

Chaos does not function on its own, however. This is what the angels were for, but before the angels, there was the Sea and the Underworld and the Heavens, and Time wound itself around them all to create something _holistic_ , this one world united under Chaos. A year ago, Nerissa would have laughed if someone tried to say that their world lives and breathes, as surely as she does, but it is true.

The swell of the Sea, the heavy breaths of the Heavens, the pull of the Underworld, dark and mysterious, but only just less so than Time itself, Komos’s steady and unwavering pulse. And Chaos is sort of like its heart, she supposes. It pumps magic down through wispy clouds and crashing waves. It makes Chronos’s Gate function—has done so again, as it tries to realign itself after five centuries of mourning—and it sustains all life, but it cannot sustain its own.

She understands, now, why Chaos selected her. Its bond to Poseidon is different than its bond to her. It has trusted him to guide her, and has trusted her to protect this world. Sometimes, though, Poseidon does not trust her. More often, she doesn’t trust herself. But it is here, before the Sea and the Underworld, that he tells her he loves her, that he trusts her and he will be waiting, always, because, selfishly, he does not want to live without her.

He knows she is afraid, but he cannot walk this path for her, even if he wants to. There is some sort of irony to it, that she will follow her mortality into the Underworld after all these months, just like she wished all along, but then she will turn around and she will come back and she will leave her mortality behind, maybe forever.

Perhaps she ought to be afraid of that, of the Underworld, of the sweet melody of death eternal.

But it is the Sea that has her frozen, just like always.

“Your magic won’t let you drown,” Poseidon tells her quietly, and maybe it would be true if it were not wrapped around her aching heart the way it is. Her magic is a function of her grief, and the Sea—

The Sea is alive, just like she is. It seeks to destroy, to hurt all who hurt it first, but they have _all_ hurt the Sea, as surely as they have all hurt Chaos, this world, Komos, _balance_ …

“And you can fly,” he adds after a moment. “That seems pretty reassuring, right? Birds don’t drown, do they?”

“Most wings don’t work if they’re wet,” she points out. “I’m not a _duck_.”

“Then what was the point of Poseidon having wings?” He sounds annoyed, as if it is _her_ fault the myths are written the way they are. “Didn’t he _live_ in the Sea?”

“Maybe he _was_ like a duck.”

“Shut up.”

She smiles at him. “Well, it’s a possibility. How would we ever know?”

“Aether would know,” he muses. “Maybe we could ask him.”

“I somehow doubt he took the time to figure out what type of feathers Poseidon had.”

He shrugs. “Just a thought. I just think—you shouldn’t be scared, though. You’ll come back from this too. And this time I know you want to.”

“I’ll come back,” she agrees. “I just have to get there first.”

It’s a lot like Namthi, though. Interestingly enough, even the rocks look the same. Those black rocks, with their strange magic… Now, though, it is a part of her. She is a part of Chaos, as surely as the Underworld is. As Time and the Heavens and, yes, the Sea.

Compared to the song of the Underworld, the Sea’s song is loud and heavy, full of grief and rage, that’s what Poseidon is always saying. It is simply a part of the world’s balance. Chaos cannot find its harmony until its grief has run its course.

It is, of course, just like before. The Sea bends to her will, but this time it is not simply her, Nerissa. This is Chaos, too, and, by extension, Poseidon. They are Chaos’s messengers, children of the Sea… It does not need to bow to them, but, for now, it will.

And yet her legs tremble as she walks. She burns with the pain of her magic and aches with the weight of her past. If she is not careful, she will start to see him just in front of her, chest still, hands wrapped around his own throat. Will see him here, beneath the force of the high tide, unable to breathe.

She cannot breathe, but the water doesn’t fall this time. It stays suspended above her, away from her, the wary embrace of the Sea. It has been hurt so fiercely, and for what? She wonders if it knows that she has been hurt too. Wonders if it can feel her emotions as strongly as Poseidon can feel its own.

There is no time to panic, though. She thinks of her brother, behind her. _You’ll come back from this too_ , and if there is any promise she will keep to him, it has to be this one.

The Underworld offers a sort of reprieve. It is a horrible place, cold and dark. It swirls in its misery too, as surely as do the Sea and the Heavens, but it knows what she is and so it lets her pass partway. It knows, too, what she is here for, more than she is here to find the truth about Aether and Erebus, more than she is here to save their world.

It is kinder than Chronos’s Gate, but it does not make it hurt any less.

She was so young when she did magic for the first time. What she cannot remember well, the Underworld recalls for her. Her father’s voice was soft, gentle, when he explained to her:

“ _Water is an element of patience and healing. It exists everywhere within us and outside of us. Wherever we go, water always waits. It doesn’t seek to hurt, but it can be cruel too, when it has been hurt first…_ ”

He guided her through it, for many months. And when he died, she kept practicing every single day. But she was not good at patience, and she was no healer, no, not at all… It was Adrienne who sat with her then, so much more serious than usual, and said, “ _Your magic is a part of_ you _, Nerissa. You can’t wield it the same way Dad did, because you_ aren’t _Dad._ ”

And the Underworld whispers the little girl's voice too, pulled from her own mouth: “ _I just want to do it the way he wanted me to._ ”

When Adrienne held her hands and kissed her forehead, she feels it just as warmly as when she was eight. “ _I know. But he loved you for you. He never wanted you to be anybody but who you are. He’ll always love you, no matter who that person turns out to be, because that person is still our Nerissa, isn’t she?_ ”

She had been jealous of Poseidon, before, any time she caught Adrienne instructing him, but when she sees it now, she understands, for the first time—

Adrienne carried her flame with fear, and Poseidon never has.

It seems so obvious, now, as the memories wind around her. They have inherited their magic from their parents, but it is, unequivocally, their own. And the rest of them show her that this is what their parents loved so much about them. _I love you,_ they said so often, every single day, even when they were not speaking at all. They held her, they wiped away her tears, they kissed her hands and her head and her nose and they said such ridiculous things, sometimes, just to get her to smile.

And when she was afraid, they said, “ _It will be okay_ ,” and it was, it always was, it _is_.

She leaves something other than her mortality in the Underworld, but she carries out with her so much more. With all her parents’ love around her, the Sea is not really so scary, is it? They are not here, no, but they love her, have always loved her, _will_ always love her, how could she ever have doubted it?

She doesn’t worry that the Sea will drop down on her when she walks back across its floor, up the rocks, back to her brother. It crashes down behind her, but she does not look, because—

It is okay, and she is afraid, but it is okay.

She kneels down and she hugs him, pulls him in close to her and she whispers, “They love us so much. They love us so much,” and he smiles against her shoulder, falls into her embrace as surely as he once fell into the Sea’s, and he says, “I know.”

 _Nerissa and Poseidon_ , children of the Sea. They are Ely’s children. They are Adrienne’s children. It does not matter if they are dead, because they are still here, and they are still family, and it hurts so badly. Her grief washes over her stronger than the tide. She cries, and she cries, and she cries, and she tells him everything, all of it, and he cries too—this grief, they share it. Not even Time can take it away. It sits between the two of them and the Sea and the Heavens and Chaos, lonely Chaos, seeking _balance_ …

She has her father’s eyes, and his magic. The colour of his hair and skin, his nose, his eyebrows. Her mother’s flair for dramatics, her lack of patience, all her fiercely protective rage, and her father’s intelligence, his passion, all the love he poured into it. She has her mother’s smile, her voice, her laugh, and yet she is not Ely, and she is not Adrienne. She is _Nerissa_. She is both of them, and she is neither of them, and that is why they love her, even if she does not know yet how to love herself.

They leave the Sea behind them, together, but its song never does fade away.

-

In truth, the fear never quite goes away either. She remembers standing before the Sea in Phiise, and she is not panicking this time, no, but it still makes her heart race, makes her breath hitch. Everyone knows it by now, and they say things like— _it’s okay, it will be okay_ , and it is. It really is.

The memories of her parents stay with her too, stronger than ever. Stronger than the fear, but there is one, just one, that still makes her wonder. One day she thinks to ask, but Emerson does not have an answer for her. She says instead, “Stella might know.”

Stella doesn’t actually know either, but her smile is sad, like she has thought of this before. “I think she probably was afraid of it. It hurt her very badly, even if she did love it.”

She doesn’t tell Poseidon until weeks later, and a funny look crosses his face.

“Where did you get that idea?” he asks.

“In the Underworld. I know, well, it’s probably hard for you to remember, but—”

“No,” he cuts in. “It’s not. ‘Cause she told me so often how dangerous fire is if you lose control of it. It sorta just…takes and takes and takes, you know?”

“And you think that scared her?”

“You know,” he says, then pauses, thoughtful. “You know, I always got the idea that she was more afraid of it when it _was_ in control. And she was never scared when I messed up. Only when she was trying to show me.”

“So you think she…?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t really know. I’m just kinda surprised you asked, because you always sort of reminded me of her.”

Nerissa blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Well, what’s scarier than something that’s out of control? Something, I guess, that was in your control, and isn’t anymore.” He smiles wryly. “Auntie Emerson said lots about _control_ , too. When you’ve seen how your magic can hurt people, it’s hard not to be scared that it’ll hurt them again.”

“But Mom never hurt anyone with magic, did she?”

“I don’t know. Did you?”

Only all the people she killed to ensure their survival, but she understands, now: what is necessary is not always right, no, but she cannot regret what she has done to stay alive without first regretting the fact that she is alive at all.

“Either way,” he says after a moment, “I think she didn’t want anyone to know. So…I guess she probably never got over it. I mean, it was different when she wasn’t teaching me anymore, ‘cause then she had to no reason to cast so close to me. It’s not like anything else ever bothered her that much. Lighting a candle is pretty hard to lose control of.”

If Nerissa thinks back, it’s true that Adrienne didn’t often use magic around them. Even when she started training Nerissa to fight, she was far more reliant on her sword. And in her fight with Katina, even…

It’s hard to think about, because it still hurts so horribly, but she has come to see there is nothing _wrong_ with hurting. She wants to remember her mother exactly as she was: a woman with flaws, yes, but someone who loved—still does, even—her children more than the whole world. She did want to be strong for them, but even if Nerissa had known from childhood what she was afraid of, she doesn’t think she ever would have thought Adrienne to be _weak_. She was not a coward, any more than Nerissa is one.

“Thanks for telling me,” she says, and he smiles.

“You don’t _have_ to get over it, though, you know. I’m just happy you’re letting people help you now.”

“I don’t always want to,” she admits. “It’s hard to let you help.”

“But you don’t think you don’t deserve it anymore. I think that’s good enough, don’t you?”

 _Deserving_. Chaos gave her wings, gives her magic, gives her life. She has found balance within herself and restored balance to Chaos, and even now she is still here, working as hard as ever, to maintain it. Her magic has not been used for anything more horrible than the act of protecting herself and her loved ones. It was not made to hurt. Nor was it made to heal. It simply exists, a part of her, something gifted to her in part by her father, by her mother, but it is _hers_. And it is not disgusting, or evil, and she does not hate it, even if she does not always love it.

She bites back a smile and reaches over to ruffle his hair. He swats her hand away with a scowl, but it doesn’t hold for long when she says, “I think that’s good enough.”

He meets her eyes, and they are the Sea to the Heavens, separate entities beneath the unity of Chaos, opposites in so many ways, an endless reflection of one another. His gaze is calm and kind and gentle, like the Sea, but he carries all its grief and rage too, just as surely as she does. It will not go away. Maybe she will always be afraid, but she is breathing, and she is living, and there is a whole future of _balance_ and _harmony_ ahead of them.

He loves her, he trusts her, and their parents are not here, no, but they aren’t far. She is somebody’s child, somebody’s sister, niece, friend, girlfriend, and the Sea cannot take from her anymore.

 _It will be okay_ , that’s what they tell her.

And it will be. Of course it will be, as long as she remembers it can be.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated! xx
> 
> if you're interested in learning more about or reading my novel series, i post all info on twitter [@laphicets](https://twitter.com/laphicets) and tumblr [@kohakhearts](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com)! feel free to find me for general writing updates too; i also sometimes take fic requests on both platforms!


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